GILROY
– A slow-to-start school board race heated up when a retired
Gilroy educator and an active district parent tossed their hats
into the ring just before candidate filing closed Friday
afternoon.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – A slow-to-start school board race heated up when a retired Gilroy educator and an active district parent tossed their hats into the ring just before candidate filing closed Friday afternoon.
Six candidates – three incumbents and three new faces – will now vie for three Gilroy Unified School District Board of Trustees seats this Nov. 2.
Meanwhile, no new candidates for three Gavilan College board seats emerged with the close of filing, so the seats of San Benito County Trustee Tom Breen and Morgan Hill area Trustee Leonard Washington will not be contested. Gilroy resident Manly Willis will challenge Trustee Mark Dover for his seat.
The recent entrants in the GUSD race are Bob Heisey, a parent active in the Alliance for Academic Excellence, and Pat Midtgaard, a long-time GUSD educator and former principal of Antonio Del Buono Elementary School.
As a parent of a Gilroy High School graduate and current GHS freshman, Heisey said he shares a sense of urgency for change with other parents.
“I think, with the issues that the alliance is dealing with at the school board and the administration and so forth, we realized that the school board did not necessarily seem to have the urgency that we had as a parent group,” said Heisey, a 16-year Gilroy resident. “You’re looking at it from a different situation if you’re a parent versus if you’re not a parent with a child in the system.”
As a member of the Academic Alliance and frequent attendee of school board meetings, Heisey said he has seen some positive things happening in the district, but there is still much to improve.
“The school board philosophy is not driving the management of the school district here in Gilroy,” he said. “It seems like more times than not the school board defers to the administration … . I was really concerned with the personnel issues. I really don’t think the term ‘not a good fit’ can be applied to the employee situation, especially the teachers – we have to get more objective criteria.”
Heisey is one of three candidates to file a 200-word statement in the Santa Clara County ballot. Gurich and Rhoda Bress also filed the statement, at a cost of $1,710. Kraemer, Midtgaard and Rosso did not file statements.
Midtgaard was a highly respected educator taught elementary school in GUSD for more than 15 years and was principal for 15 years after that, most recently at Del Buono, before retiring last spring. Her three daughters graduated from GUSD schools and, she says, were highly successful at the university level.
“I’ve been a parent and teacher in Gilroy Unified for more than 30 years,” Midtgaard said. “And in that time, I’ve had a variety of experiences that I think informed me of policies and procedures of running a public school system; but I think I also understand the art of teaching, the pedagogy, and I think that perspective could be valuable on the board.”
Midtgaard said her perspective from being a parent in the district before really understanding the system will help her relate to current district parents.
Rhoda Bress, a member of the Academic Alliance, also said that having a son in Gilroy schools will give other parents more of a voice in school board decisions.
All seven current GUSD trustees have had children enrolled in or graduate from Gilroy public schools, but do not now have children in the system.
“I think it’s critical to get trustees to work with parents in the district,” she said. “And I don’t think anybody can do it better than a parent.”
Bress’ three older sons graduated from GHS and she says her experiences have directed her to focus on improving the total classroom experience.
“I’m just very, very motivated to have for this district the highest of standards when it comes to the academic experience,” Bress said. “And when you think of all the components that make up the classroom experience, it’s the curriculum, classroom attendance, teacher support, the academic environment, the academic culture, and we just really have to have the highest of standards for everything we do in this district.”
Trustee John Gurich, who is running for a second term and is the only incumbent to file a ballot statement, could not be reached for comment. Gurich, whose son graduated from GHS this spring, teaches physical education in San Jose.
Incumbent Bob Kraemer, who has served on the school board since 1999, said that despite some setbacks in parent and public relations over the past year, the board and district have set a good foundation on which he would like to help build.
“I think the accountability system is a big step in what I’m very much a believer in, having come from the business side,” he said, of the district’s plan to more closely measure student learning.
During his second term, Kraemer said he would like to see parents, educators and other stakeholders work together to implement the districts goals recently laid out in its Strategic Plan, including bettering student performance, engaging parents and improving staffing.
The former Gilroy Foods vice president’s three children attended Gilroy schools. He chose not to file a ballot statement.
Board President Jaime Rosso also will be defending his seat for a second term this November.
“We’ve set a course for improvement for the district, and I think we’ve made good progress in that direction,” he said. “I think we’ve put a lot of systems in place to show improvement and I want to support that effort.”
Rosso, who also had three children go through GUSD, did not file a ballot statement.
In the Gavilan College race for one seat in each of the college’s three districts – Gilroy, San Benito County and Morgan Hill – only the Gilroy seat will be contested.
Incumbent Mark Dover, seeking his second term, will be challenged by Manly Willis, who has said he wants more oversight of the college’s spending.
No Gavilan candidates paid the $3,030 to file a 200-word statement in the San Benito and Santa Clara county ballots.
